Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume I, Part 1: 1835-1866 eBook

“Your hens won’t lay, eh? Tell your
maw to feed ’em parched corn and drive ’em
uphill,” and this was always a splendid stroke
of humor to his small hearers.

Also, he knew how to mimic with his empty hands the
peculiar patting and tossing of a pone of corn-bread
before placing it in the oven. He would make
the most fearful threats to his own children, for disobedience,
but never executed any of them. When they were
out fishing and returned late he would say:

“You—­if I have to hunt you again
after dark, I will make you smell like a burnt horn!”

Nothing could exceed the ferocity of this threat,
and all the children, with delightful terror and curiosity,
wondered what would happen—­if it ever did
happen—­that would result in giving a child
that peculiar savor. Altogether it was a curious
early childhood that Little Sam had—­at least
it seems so to us now. Doubtless it was commonplace
enough for that time and locality.

V

THE WAY OF FORTUNE

Perhaps John Quarles’s jocular, happy-go-lucky
nature and general conduct did not altogether harmonize
with John Clemens’s more taciturn business methods.
Notwithstanding the fact that he was a builder of dreams,
Clemens was neat and methodical, with his papers always
in order. He had a hearty dislike for anything
resembling frivolity and confusion, which very likely
were the chief features of John Quarles’s storekeeping.
At all events, they dissolved partnership at the end
of two or three years, and Clemens opened business
for himself across the street. He also practised
law whenever there were cases, and was elected justice
of the peace, acquiring the permanent title of “Judge.”
He needed some one to assist in the store, and took
in Orion, who was by this time twelve or thirteen
years old; but, besides his youth, Orion—­all
his days a visionary—­was a studious, pensive
lad with no taste for commerce. Then a partnership
was formed with a man who developed neither capital
nor business ability, and proved a disaster in the
end. The modest tide of success which had come
with John Clemens’s establishment at Florida
had begun to wane. Another boy, Henry, born in
July, 1838, added one more responsibility to his burdens.

There still remained a promise of better things.
There seemed at least a good prospect that the scheme
for making Salt River navigable was likely to become
operative. With even small boats (bateaux) running
as high as the lower branch of the South Fork, Florida
would become an emporium of trade, and merchants and
property-owners of that village would reap a harvest.
An act of the Legislature was passed incorporating
the navigation company, with Judge Clemens as its
president. Congress was petitioned to aid this
work of internal improvement. So confident was
the company of success that the hamlet was thrown into
a fever of excitement by the establishment of a boatyard
and, the actual construction of a bateau; but a Democratic
Congress turned its back on the proposed improvement.
No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt River,
though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that
a party of picnickers had seen one night a ghostly
steamer, loaded and manned, puffing up the stream.
An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when he heard of
it, said: